Unity among Forces and Police key to victories against LTTE - Navy Commander

COLOMBO: The Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda appearing in the Independent Television Network's "Thulawa" live TV interview telecast recently expressed his views and opinions on the present conflict and the role played by the Navy in eradicating LTTE terrorism.

He categorically denied the allegations aimed at the Security Forces and Police by various Human Rights organisations and stated that these organisations are making all these allegations for their own survival.

Here are excerpts from the interview.

Q: The Sri Lanka Navy completed 57 years of service to the country last year. If you look back at the two years as the Commander of the Navy, what can you say?

A: Sri Lanka Navy started its voyage in the year 1934, as a volunteer force under the British rule. In the year 1957, a Sri Lankan became the first Commander. I'm the 15th Navy Commander. Especially till 80s, Sri Lanka Navy assisted fishermen, arrested illegal immigrants, assists during national disaster situations and avoid smuggling etc. But a war situation started in 80s and LTTE also started their Sea Tiger activities.

With this development, the Navy was entrusted with lot of responsibility.

All the navies in the world are called as "Silence Service Force", as many will not be able to see what we perform out at sea. We perform a silence service and even this is true for today.

But we have changed our operational tactics during the last couple of years. In early years we use to wait for the enemy to come, but today that pattern has changed.

Today we go out in chase of the enemy and destroy them. What the navy has acquired today is due to the team work, dedication and high level of training.

Q: Even though signs of an ethnic conflict erupted during the 70s, the war situation aggravated during 80s. In earlier stages the Navy was blamed for allowing the LTTE to bring in their military hardware via sea routes. How do you see this allegation?

A: It is true that LTTE received around 90% of their stuff through the sea lines during the early stages but not 100%. Navy did destroy some of the Tiger ships in various occasions.

But especially during the last 14 months we were able to destroy 08 floating warehouses of the LTTE. This is in addition to the ten trawlers we destroyed in the early stages of 2006.

We were also able to capture some of the trawlers. Lot of valuable information was obtained from arrested persons. This information helped us to seek and destroy the enemy ships.

Trawlers were capable of bringing only a small number of artillery ammunition and after analyzing intelligence reports, we saw that the Tigers are unloading them from bigger ships to smaller ones.

We destroyed a vessel on 17 September 2006, in the Sri Lankan seas. After realizing this Tigers did this activity in deep seas. Navy was able to destroy couple of ships at distances of 730 Km and 2800Km. On 7 October 2007, we destroyed another ship.

All these victories did not come over night and there were times when we came back empty handed but we gained experience from all these incidents.

Q: You talked about Sea Tigers and some media segments stated that the sea tigers are strong. You also mentioned that LTTE lost their last ship; does this mark the end of the Sea Tiger wing?

A: What I meant when I stated the end of Tiger last ship was about the destruction of last Tiger arms carrying ship. Yet they have their armed craft.

Some craft are slightly bigger. In 2007, we fought Sea Tigers regularly.

These confrontations reduced their fighting capability. We were able to destroy three tiger suicide boats which reached Colombo harbour January 2007. We confronted the sea tigers 11 times in the east and destroyed their vessels and craft.

Q: Can you fight a war out at sea in isolation. What assistance you get from the International community especially from India?

A: We have a very close relationship with the Indian Navy as well as the Indian Coast Guard. We discuss issues of maritime interest four times a year, share intelligence and discuss about patrol patterns in either side of the maritime boundary line.

Q: The Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) is no more but many still believe that the LTTE became strong during the CFA. What is your view on this?

A: Yes I think the LTTE became strong during the CFA period.

Security Forces were present in Sampur when the CFA was present. The Army and Navy did certain operations in this area. But during the CFA we were asked not to do such operations.

Taking this into advantage, LTTE made it possible to attack the Security Forces camps in Trincomalee. With the Tsunami, funds came to LTTE along with communication equipment, boats etc.

Q: How do you look at Prabhakaran ?

A: He is not visible these days. Air Force keeps taking at targets. Tamilslelvan was a target of the Air Force including some of the senior cadres. Due to this Prabhakaran finds it difficult to move around. I don't think there are many leaders left behind.

Q: When we talk about the feed back from the foreign countries, I think they do praise us a lot, but don't they provide arms and ammunition, but do they provide arms and ammunition to the LTTE?

A: I do not think foreign countries willingly help the LTTE. Most of the military hardware that the tigers purchase is done not from the Western countries but from those countries which had terrorist conflicts. Corrupt officials in these countries remain as a main factor.

Q: Are you happy with the Political leadership and support that you get?

A: Mahinda Rajapaksa became the President after two months of my tenure as the Commander of the Navy.

The President or the Secretary Defence has never influenced me. I got all that I requested from them.

Some times they even asked me whether it is enough. I think the situation with the other Commanders are also the same.

We have the freedom to control our own forces. This factor can be termed as the key to all military victories.

Q: What was the role and task of the Navy during the operations in the East?

A: The whole episode started with the closure of the Mavil Aru sluice gate. On 01 August 2006, LTTE attempted to attack a Jet Liner passenger vessel, but we averted that. They also fired artillery at the naval Dockyard.

Around 10 sailors were killed while another 50 suffered injuries. On the same day Tigers reinforced some 200 cadres in 30 sea tiger boats. With the assistance of the Air Force we managed to destroy 12 Sea Tiger boats.

They tried the same thing after two days and on that day tigers lost 08 boats. We had a detachment at Muttur and this help in the liberation of Sampur from Tigers. During this operation, the Special Boats Squadron transported around 300 soldiers.

Tigers even attacked these craft. But the sailors did a remarkable job to make the induction successful.

Sixteen sailors were killed in this confrontation. Due to this sacrifice Security Forces were able to keep command of Kattaparichchan, Muttur town and Muttur Police.

This was the key to all the successes that we had in this area.

Asian Tribune